Born into Melpomene
by Asphyxia Miseria
Summary: Her life was already a fractured mirror. But what will she do, after she finally finds someone who shows her the world, dies? And she blames herself for it. As the mirror shatters, she tries to piece them back together before the sun falls down again.
1. Prologue: Diary by Candlelight

**Title**: Born Into Melpomene

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its elements. I'm merely playing with them.

**Rating**: PG-13 for a bit of language.

**Summary**: This little tale is still being written and still being developed. It tells a story of a young girl who basically befalls more tragedies after another. One day she meets a boy and her life changes for a while. It doesn't last, thankfully. It really should be a show on the WB.

**Author's Note**: The purpose of this chapter is to set the mood. Hopefully it does its job. Starting as something totally different, I had published this story on Fanfiction before. It received close to no comment and so I deleted it and left it buried in my computer, showing it only to those select few who wanted to read what I wrote. I reopened it a few months later and read it again. I decided that my writing style had matured much more since my first publishing of this story and I ended up changing everything. I rewrote this tale and am showing it to you now.

This is my second story counting my first publication. So be constructive eh?

Sir Asphyxia Miseria

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**Born Into Melpomene**

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**Pro****logue**: Diary by Candlelight

I didn't know it could happen, I couldn't believe. I knew in my heart, my soul, that something, some tragedy would happen in this desolate night; but I refused to believe and refused to act. It waited for me like the cobra sneaking along the hot sands of the Sahara for its prey, and when it struck, it strikes with such ferocity that none can survive from its bite.

_And I killed him._

Because of me, it all came crashing down in a single second, one single act that proved to be more than my love, my feelings for him. I was too slow and I was too stupid. Too idiotic and naïve to believe a soul of another, whom he warned me against, would change for me and nobody else.

_I was selfish._

It tears at my soul knowing what I did and having to live with it every second the air touches my lips, wishing it to be from him, from **Cassius**. Confusion takes control of my mind and causes it to direct my very flesh, which I hate with a **fucking** passion.

_And I hate myself._

Yet I'm confused and do not know where to start. I hope to straighten this out and love myself again... and to find him because I know he must be out there. **He has to be out there.** Waiting for somebody. Waiting for me. I will start by introducing you to myself and my golden days in between before the tragedy. The tragedy of me. This is  
  
**The Tragedy of Jennie Stillheart**


	2. Chapter 1: The Muse has Risen

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**Part I:** _The Muse has Risen_

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Born on the eve of summer's gathering to leave, my father was in the room with my mother as she pushed me into the world. The cold harsh world; you see, that night was a bitter one. My father, **Bernard Hesse** was a respected wizard in our little community and my mother, **Valerie Stillheart** was an accomplished English woman who married a bit too early for her time. I remember my mother telling me as a child, during the times where the days were golden and evenings were filled with stories, such wonderful things that I wouldn't have found out on my own.  
  
We had lived in a humble home somewhere on the outskirts of Paris, France. Love had such an infantile meaning but that is what I felt whenever I looked outside of the single glass paned window and saw the distant lights of the city, flickering on and off like a candle that wasn't quite in focus. Whenever I had a walk through the lush forests of Oak and Willow with each parent on either side of me, I felt it just the same or even more. Those days are long quite over; yet I dwell on them, much like obesity dwells on the soul who chooses to be lazy rather than fit.

Still, I live under this cursed name, those **abominable** markings that show where my family traces to and to where it does not...**where it shall never be**. Even if I want it so dearly. Even if I call to the stars, nothing will grant my wishes.

_Jenescia Valienne Hesse-Stillheart_.

Cursed, I say, because that is the only reason to explain my misfortune in life and love. I sorrow for the girl who gets placed of the burden of sharing a name with me. I don't even dare using that name in public, or even in private, so I go by Jennie Stillheart, dropping my father's surname because he is an idiot who I wish I never knew.   
  
Those times where all 3 of us were fine did not last too long. By the young age of 5, I had grown my violently wavy auburn hair, which I had acquired from my mother's side thank god, to my waist. And so did grow the arguments. I had no idea what they were about but I did know that my father would come home stumbling as my mother would try to straighten him up. She never nagged or confronted him about it, yet he became more and more aggressive toward her.

I recall one night where my father came home quite late with a soiled yellow shirt and loosened belt for wear and my mother had asked him what took so long to be back with his family. He muttered something with his hoarse French accent and pulled off his leather belt. I'll remember the piercing screams uttered out of my mother's throat from his lashings for the rest of my life. They became on a daily basis soon enough and he never cared if I was in the same room.

At that young age, it was intangible for me to understand what was happening and why it did happen. I never interfered. My mother never talked of it. I sometimes wish I did do something, anything at all. We pretended it didn't happen; even if the bruises went green and became unbearable.   
  
I suppose the last straw, or the breaking point, would have to be the day my father left my mother for dead. And yes, he did this all in front of my face; I still do believe you can see the scars of it in my irises if you look close enough, still as red and raw as the hour it had occurred. He came home with another woman, which I now know is named Serena, while my mother was in the washing room. I remember the looks on their faces, my father's scraggly beard and sharp face devouring the lips of the blonde-headed woman. She was nothing but a whore to me and probably to him also.

He did not know my mother was in the other room washing herself as he and his mistress climbed into the nearby bed and proceeded to do things which would earn them a place in hell. I had slept in that bed once, and it makes me sick to think of that now. My mother soon heard the inescapable noises of the two loud rats mating only 20 feet and a wall away. I suppose you know what happened next. My father took his wand out, he was drunk if you had not noticed the pattern by now, and cursed her.

_Cursed her to insanity._

The visceral part of me wanted to cry out and kick my own father where he had created me but the factual part of me took over. I had always been a sensible person and I suppose that was the result of me being a Ravenclaw later on. My mother writhed like a puppet with its strings tied in the wrong places and screamed as if someone had locked her in a box of needles only to shake it with her inside. I stood there, in the doorway, and watched as my father did such things, unaware of his nudity as his lover sat by the bed, with a petrified expression. How I wished I had a vase to throw at her ugly face.   
  
But I still do blame myself for all that had happened with my mother; doing something, anything, would have been a difference. My 10 year old self at that time still did not develop maturely enough to act upon will, but freeze upon need. He and his lover knew the ministry would soon come after them so they became fugitives. My father was a potions master in our little community of wizards so he knew many things of concealment.

What happens to him now, I don't know. That night was so **vivid**, yet so _ethereal_ at the same time. I do not remember much but I do know that right after he had seen me watch him kill my mother, I ran. I ran as fast as I could to the great wooden chest which held many of my mother's possessions and tried to stuff it all in my pockets or robes.

Of those things, I took a golden flute encrusted with jewels, a hand mirror which had delicate fairies and wood nymphs carved into the railing, and a ring. A ring of gold and deep jade. I still wear it on my finger today as a reminder of my sorrows and my sins. Had I the chance, I would have taken more things but he followed me, that bastard, and when I felt his presence on the hair of my neck it was too late. He struck a muggle blow at my face. Hard and cold his like his heart; I felt the back of his hand slam and shatter into my cheek. Such hands I had once felt beneath arms and thought love. Such fingers which I had played with now had rings from other women. And they were hard rings. I knew I felt blood from that impact, I knew I had heard a breaking of a bone in my face. If I was conscious, I knew I would have cried. I would have cried for my father and why he did such things.

_Did he not love me? Did he not love mother?_

I would rather have him love mother than he did love me because he would not have killed her and mother would have loved me at least. Thinking back on it, those were feelings of a child. Of a silly girl. Though it was the love my mother had given me all before which keeps me alive to this day.  
  
When I woke up, I found myself in a car of leather interior and men with black robes and black top hats at the wheel. I had never been in a muggle car before then because we always just walked to places, they were all so close to home.

I did not think; I acted upon impulse. An impulse so strong I thought my heart would **burst**.

_Fear_  
  
"HE KILLED MY MOTHER! WHERE IS HE?!"

I had blurted as I leaped from the seats. I felt such rage, such anger and angst that I did not notice the awkwardness of my cheek bones being in the wrong places. I was disfigured for a moment, but the works of magic had restored me to my beautiful self.   
  
I thought they hadn't heard me, for I heard not but a sigh from the man in the driver's seat. The other was looking out the window.  
  
"I suppose she's awake now. I knew we should have given her a sleeping drought before he let her in the car. Poor thing doesn't need to know such until later,"   
  
"NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. MY MOTHER IS DEAD!" I felt like I was going to burst, the redness of my face surfaced like the determination of a herring spotting its fish.  
  
"Your mother isn't dead, little one. Just go back to sleep and you can see her when you wake up," said the one who was once looking out the window, now at me. He was a man of old age; wrinkled and grayed with a face like a fatherly grandpa. His very face gave me much comfort and I realized the silliness of all of my yelling as my senses came back.   
  
"…then where is she?" Such innocence I once had, but it soon stow away from me like water running from your cupped hands.   
  
"Just go to sleep, little one. All will be fine when you do."  
  
I felt an overwhelming feeling of drowsiness as my eyelids grew heavy with pain. I drifted off to sleep and hadn't even noticed it. He had put a sleeping spell on me; how manipulative and cunning one must be to take advantage of my young mind, of my simplicity. Had I not fallen to a dreamless nothing, I would have felt anger at him for doing such a thing without me knowing. It was evil of him and I thought of him to be the devil.I never regained my ability to trust as easily as I did since then.

_I found all these things out once I woke up from my sleep._

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	3. Chapter 2

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**Part I:** _The Muse has Risen_

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Waking up was a mistake. Or should I say it wasn't the best thing to happen to me at that moment? I woke up drowsy, even though I had no dreams. Everything felt out of order, out of focus even if it was the most vibrant it ever had been. What I did know was that I felt the pillow underneath my head was wet. So was my forehead. I had been sweating in my sleep and I didn't know why. I hadn't dreamt of anything, so what was I afraid of? Or maybe it was the hot night air. That's another thing I noticed, the air was clean and not humid. But still warm. Clean meaning sterile, much too sterile; as if somebody had taken the air and purified it to the point of utter ness.

As I got up, I remembered seeing around me light. Much light, but the bed was soft. Other beds were mines around too. My arm really hurt. I then abruptly remembered the items I had taken from the chest and searched my body for them. Instead of feeling the usually soft cotton feeling of the robes, I had felt a thin material draped over me.

I looked down and saw that I was in hospital robes. It is a **horror** to all of a sudden wake up drenched in sweat with hospital robes on you. That is exactly how I felt. I would have screamed but my mind was not working correctly.

I had not much time to react or think, because I heard loud footsteps upon the sterile tile of the floor heading toward me. I hadn't been thinking anyway. Upon impulse, I brought my head back upon the pillow and pretended to sleep. I could tell the floor was hard from their footsteps.

_Their voices were loud as they entered the dreadfully echoing quiet hall._

"No! I don't believe she should have to stay here all of her life, she should be able to go to some other place. Plus, it won't be healthy for her to live around sick people constantly," The voice was as powerful as the door that slammed behind him. It was also distinctly male.

"Where else would she go? Listen to me, Stephen. I know that this is the only place where she can live in peace. With her mother is the best place to be, even if she's insane. There is no other place," this voice was age-worn and familiar. He was the man in the car that had charmed me to go back to sleep. I was intent on hearing more.

"She can go and live with foster parents, anyone would be glad to take her! Ask Potter, he would bring her up. He knew what it was like to live a miserable life and wouldn't place it on Jennie here," his voice really was loud.  
  
"I know there would be possible suitors to take her, but wouldn't you think Bernard would come after her? He is, after all, a skilled wizard in concealment. Whatever made him turn to the dark side is something I wouldn't know, and Jennie knows things. It would be much safer to keep her inside of this hospital with her mother; **he** doesn't know that she's not dead," I didn't know what I felt; I just know that I had been pretending to sleep upon the arm that hurt so badly. Whatever had happened to my arm, it really did something bad.  
  
"Damnit, Dumbledore, you always had a way with convincing others. I'll make sure she—I think we should continue this conversation someplace else. She looks to be okay."

"Very well then,"  
  
I must have stirred. Or moved, because they soon left. As soon as I heard the door slam, I got up from my bed as if somebody had pricked me with a needle and I tended my arm. I found out later from a healer that it was broken.

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Since then, I have never gotten an explanation to my face of why I had to stay here. Just that sketchy bit of information from my eavesdropping let me know why I am. All I was ever told was that I had to stay because I had no place else to live. What a wonderful thing to tell a child that had no mother, no father, and most of all: nobody who loved. So it was like that for about a year or so. My childhood ran away from me, and it ran quite quickly.

_And all I could do was watch._

Watch the soft hair of **innocence** fade past the horizon. Watch the sun go down in a blaze of purples and blacks. The sun went down and I never saw it come back...   
  
I stayed by my mother's bedside by day, watching the nurses come and go: hoping every day that she would speak my name but no, she lay there with her eyes as wide as seas and even more vacant. By night, I wondered the hospital wings and tried to bring comfort to those who were sick and had no family.

In this way, I thought I could find love from someone, but didn't. It gave me no peace inside, nor any sleep. I didn't have to act like a 10 year old because I was no longer that.

_I was a harpy._

When I woke I usually found myself on the nearby benches, hands underneath my head, wishing that sleep had not left me as soon as it had. Approaching my 11th birthday, which was right before the first Saturday of September, something happened that changed my entire life. That changed the way I saw, the way I heard, the way I tasted…the way I **felt**.

The acceptance letters to Hogwarts had been sent.

_And one had been addressed to me._

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	4. Chapter 3

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**Part I:** _The Muse has Risen_

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Being in school helped me keep my thoughts far away from St. Mungos and my mother. I lived in a winter that lasted **forever** and Hogwarts was where I floated off to when I was asleep. The storm was still brewing but I couldn't feel it. I would wish to be there, anytime, but now; I just want to go someplace else to figure myself out. The letter actually was a surprise for me because I had forgotten everything of the wizarding world in those long months even though I was surrounded by it 24/7. It must have been numbed out in my mind that you could still learn things so beautiful.

I remember seeing the golden parchment fall through the door of my mother's ward ever so slightly at the break of dawn; I had slept in the couch nearby that night that stuck up at me in the most displeasing places so my sleep was light.

The curtain was pulled back as the **brilliant** sun emerged from the other side of the world. The golden rays intensely reflected the ink of the letter. That was the thing that woke me up, the blinding ink reflected from the sun.

I remember being frustrated quite greatly because I had intended to get as much sleep as possible to forget about my birthday which had gone unnoticed the other day. My eyes pierced open, like a woman who had just witnessed a murder of her husband and sons, to find the letter lying on the floor still glorious.

It had the words Jennie Stillheart in that beautiful anaconda green and I flew from my resting place to grab it.

_Someone acknowledged my existence, and I would never forget that day.   
_  
One of the assistant healers had to take me outside to Wizard London because…well nobody else could have. Thinking back on it, I didn't realize that one of them actually took me. I was just happy to be outside of the hospital.

She was a nice woman, with a face like a gentle dove and hair blacker than the **darkest** crow. Her skin felt like milk holding my hand down the damp streets of Diagon Alley; rain had started early this year. I didn't even fathom that she was not my mother; I was just too giddy pointing everything out as if I were a muggle experiencing London for the first time. The crowds and the colours of everything excited me.

_I felt alive again._   
  
After we had gotten most of the supplies on the list, we entered the wand shop. Like I had said before, my parents lived quite comfortably and never had less than enough money. The shop was filled wall to wall with shelves and they held brown rustic looking cases which seemed to have acquired dust throughout the ages. **Ollivander's** it was called and bragged on the sign that it was creating wands since the ancient times.

I found this hard to believe, although it was most likely true. You never truly know how old things were now.   
  
"Mr. Ollivander? Are you here? I can't seem to see you beyond those shelves!" the nurse called. I was captivated by the old creaking wood of the roof.  
  
"Ah yes I'm here, I'm here,"

He seemed to have popped out of nowhere from right underneath us. He was a short, old looking wizard with a very professional air about himself.

I must have gasped because he seemed to have **laughed** at me.

"Well, a young witch looking for her very first wand eh? You don't look a day older than 11 years. Ah Leda, how are you? I remember when you first came in here. Wasn't it just last month you came here looking for a replacement for a smashed wand? That 12 inch Unicorn hair is doing well, I presume?" he sounded quite **stern** now.  
  
"Yes Mr. Ollivander. I'm here today to get young Jennie here her first wand. So I'll just umm…let you do what you do." She said it quite quickly and hurriedly found the door and left.

She told me to meet her back at Gringotts when I had found my wand. I didn't think she liked him and I never knew her name was **Leda**.   
  
"Hmm…she seemed quite quick to get out. Anyway, tell me which hand your wand hand is?" he said quickly while taking out an assortment of measuring tapes and pins.   
  
"Wand...hand?" It all sounded so strange.

_Confused, I just wanted to get out of there._   
  
"Yes, the hand you use your wand with." He started to measure me from the foot to my shoulder and then my elbows to my wrist.   
  
"Er…well I'm left handed? Is that it?" I wish Leda had stayed.  
  
"Yes, that will do." He put his measuring tapes back into his pockets and ran into the back room. I stood there awkwardly in the wooden room watching the walls until he came back with an **earthened yellowish box** in his hand.  
  
"Yes…yes. I've been waiting to sell this one. Maybe it is time somebody had it. But first, we must try the other wands. You can never be too sure you know." He winked at me and set the skinny coffin like box onto the floor. Mr. Ollivander pulled a regular brown container with not as much dust on it from the others on the shelf.   
  
"9 inch, sequoia, unicorn hair. Just made it last week. Very light and delicate. Try it out, go on."

He said this as if I was a child too shy to go pet a brilliant stallion.   
  
"But I don't know what to do!" I truly was afraid now.   
  
"Just put it in your wand hand and give it a little flick. It isn't too hard, dear."   
  
I took the wand from his outstretched hand and held it in my own, still unsure. I raised my arm to do what I that I was supposed to and he snatched it away from me.

_I gasped at the abruptness of it all._  
  
"Try this one, 7 inch, Maple, phoenix feather," he was beginning to look a bit anxious now and rushed me this time. Again, I felt nothing because he snatched it away before I could have done anything.  
  
"Yes…yes. We are getting closer. You may be it. Let's try one last one before we get there. Can't be too sure now, can you?" he said. He seemed to like to reassure himself, even if I wasn't listening.

I think he was talking to himself because I didn't dare answer…and he kept talking as he went up and down shelves. He came back to me with a dustier looking box. As he opened the box, it squeaked from age and I caught a glimpse of soft red velvet at its lining.  
  
"10 inch, marble, with a core of bat fur. Perhaps this would work." He said this as he set it in my hand and told me to flick. He didn't snatch it away this time.  
  
The wand looked so beautiful, I was too afraid i might ruin it. I flicked the wand after raising it to a reasonable height and saw a **sparkle** of black and red fly from it. I hadn't felt it surge through me or anything remotely magical. It just…came. The string of lights disappeared before flying even a foot from the wand.

_I expected something more.  
_

"Is this my wand?" I asked Mr. Ollivander. Even though it was barely anything, I was still enthralled that I had done something. A burst of laughter came forth from him softly and then he spoke again.

How arrogant he seemed.  
  
"Hmm…it seems quite weak. A bit weak. You need something else. This can't be it. Yes…finally. Maybe you are the one this wand chooses!" He sounded a bit excited and it scared me. He took the wand from my hand, though I did not want it to go away, and proceeded to the yellow box. Upon further inspection, I noticed it had calligraphy in a language I did not recognize written upon it.   
  
"This…is a very old wand. Very, **VERY **old indeed. I'm surprised it is still intact. It belonged to a great sorceress and I have had it since she perished. A shame, a shame it had to wait so long to reawaken. Lately I had noticed it was shooting sparks at the most unreasonable times though the sparks did no damage at all... After centuries of being dormant, it finds a master…try it child. It wouldn't hurt." He said this quite pretentiously and I was hesitant.   
  
I took the wand after a few moments and felt its coldness surge throughout my arm, then to my entire body and mainly I felt it in my heart. I felt its power, I felt its magic, and I felt like something. I raised it as I did with the others and before I got to my desired height, it went off. In a symphony of purple and blue, I lighted the shop in **hues**.

_I became a witch for just one moment._

I was greatly excited and afraid at the same time. I realized those two emotions walked hand and hand around me. I jumped for joy after I had seen Mr. Ollivander do the same after seeming to hold his breath for moments.

_Whatever this wand meant to him, he expected this to happen, he craved for it to happen; I saw it in his old gray eyes._  
  
"Yes! Yes! It does! It finally happens. So many years, so many indeed. This is a wand created in the times of the ancients and belonged to a great sorceress. Now I should not tell you and I won't, but this wand…the very one you are holding is very great," he said to me in an excited manner. I still did not understand a thing. I was **blank**.  
  
"But remember, such greatness can come at a price. And everybody knows the price of a wand but never the value…don't abuse it." he told me in a warning tone. I was **afraid** now.  
  
"Now you go on, you need not to pay for this wand because has no money value to me anymore," I hesitated as he spoke. "Yes, go!" then I ran from the store.

I was afraid but I left after thanking him. On my way out, I saw a girl with unkept brown hair enter the shop; she looked as old as me and was with her mother. Her mother looked **beautiful **but she did not notice me at all.

There was something in her expression that seemed as if she was annoyed. I did not bother making contact with her but instead decided to see if the girl would. I smiled at her and she smiled back.

_Those beautiful few seconds, I had said something, even if it was unsaid, to a peer…to a friend._

And I felt **alive** once more. As I walked toward Gringotts waiting to see Leda waiting for me, I just could not help but think about this wand.

What did it mean to him and what does it mean to me? Why was he waiting for it to go? Does this wand hold some significance to the world? And if so, why me? Why is it me? I'm not special, I was just a girl who lost her parents.

But most of all I had thought about that girl that smiled at me at the shop. I might have made a friend. And yet it hit me that I was on my way to **Hogwarts**. On my way to freedom, and to a better life. Maybe it was the wand that chooses the path.  
  
_But whatever it was, I liked it._

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	5. Chapter 4: The Goddess of Ravenclaw

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**Part II:** _The Goddess of Ravenclaw_

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Nobody was there to hold my hand. Nobody was there to walk me up to the platform. I was greeted away by the wind coming softly from the north and it too, whispered meaningless goodbyes in my ear.

I wanted to sing for absolution whenever I was alone because I **was** alone.

_I stood by myself on this cold plain and I hated it._

Where was life if there was no love? I asked myself this question a **million** times in my head for every star I counted in the Milky Way.

And how do the stars shine every night with nobody there with them?

__

_...To tell them they are indeed beautiful? _

_ ...Do they even know how people, like me gaze up to them and wonder?_

I took the metro through London until I got to King's Cross. I was used to it all, but I too used to it. How would things be like in the grand castle?

The hospital was always just there, sterile and white. The castle on the other hand was deep and mysterious. It could never be explored in one day. I woke up this morning earlier than I usually would so I could take one last look at St. Mungo's. I styled my auburn locks in a simple ponytail and kissed my mother goodbye; I never looked back once.

Even at 11 years old, I gained a lot of life's lessons in solitude; without the disturbances of my peers trying to leap into my silvery lake.

_And what a lake it was._   
  
I was on the train now, with about less than half an hour to spare. Managing the platform was trickier than I thought it would be but I got through it by following the last couple who went through. All of the cars in the train were empty making me the first and only one in there.

I didn't mind; I found it enjoyable to look out the window to my left and see all the families crying not to be parted. I suppose it was a good thing I didn't have anyone to cry for; it made the leaving process much less tearful.

I didn't want to waste any tears for something that didn't deserve it.  
  
Being the first one on the train, I had my pick of seats. I just chose the one I saw first; I don't think people were too happy about that.   
  
"Hey!"   
  
I turned from my position at the window to the voice that seemed to be calling me.  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
The voice came from a boy who looked much older than me. He had the look of a wolf with dark eyes and black hair. His dark hair was worn in messy long locks covering his forehead and neck and parts of his face. He was quite tall and lanky.

Beside him was a girl who was just as tall as he. Her look ringed a bell in my head somewhere, I knew her. Her hair flowered softly around her chest in a spring of dark blondes and light browns but was almost black at the roots. Her **eyes** suggested friendship in that pool of green.

_For a moment, I almost drowned in her._

I also noticed the two were holding hands.  
  
"I-I-…"

I must have looked like a mouse because that was how I felt. I stumbled on my words out of fear of the two.  
  
"Hey…I've never seen you before. You're a first year aren't you?"

He was now walking toward me with a grin on his face and wand in his hand. I shrunk even lower into the chair. What did he want with me? I shouted at him to go away in my head so many times but the words never came out. The girl by his side watched only for a moment before reacting.  
  
"**No**! Louis, no. She's only a first year." she said this dangerously with such a tone that it took a while to register that it came from her. She had her hand gripped on his wrist. I realized I had not closed my eyes once the whole time.  
  
"Which would make it all the more fun! Nobody would ever find out," he was facing her now.

Their faces were intense and made me anxious. I swore, you could have cut through the tension with a butterknife.   
  
"Why do you care anyway? It's not like you aren't used to it. Hell, you even do that to your own sis-" he was cut off abruptly by a word by her uttered as if it were the worst you can do to another.

"Bastard," she had her wand out now and stuck against his neck.

"Don't you dare talk about my family in front of somebody else. And you know better than that." she said so powerfully it deserved some sort of award. The boy just stomped away with a scoff and a bitter look in his black eyes.

She turned to walk to me now and knelt down to where our faces were at the same level. I was still shrunken in the chair. I must admit I was afraid of her now.  
  
"I'm sorry he had to be like that to you. It's just…he's not a very nice guy at times. I really am sorry you had to go through that. Hi, I'm Mischa. What's your name?"   
  
"I…I'm Jennie."   
  
"Jennie, hmmm? Is this your first time on the Hogwarts Express?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Of course it is, look at you. You look so small. Didn't anyone tell you that this is where the prefects sit?"  
  
"No"  
  
"Why are you on the train so early?"  
  
"Because I came early,"  
  
"Shouldn't you be saying bye to your mom?"  
  
"My mom's in the hospital,"  
  
"What about your dad?"  
  
"I don't know,"  
  
"You don't know?"  
  
"No, I don't."  
  
"Oh, alright then. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"  
  
"No." I don't get why she was asking so many questions.   
  
"Any friends?"   
  
"No." I just thought she was being a bit nosy now, but I answered anyway because I had no reason not to.  
  
"You don't?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Well you can be my friend."

"Will you?"

"Of course, hey I'll introduce to you my sister who is going to start school this year too. Would you like that?"  
  
"Okay,"  
  
"Here. I'll show you two together,"

She got up now and made her way toward the cart door with a clip clop noise from her boots. I was still in my seat, nearly petrified.

"Come, don't be scared. I swear she's a nice girl. It'll be good to get her away from me too."

She stretched her hand out in a nuturing fashion and I hesitated. Was she playing a trick on me? What if she's really like that boy but even sneakier? I don't know what it was but I decided to go with her.

I'm glad I did.

Stepping outside of the train was different now because I had somebody holding my hand. I had somebody that coaxed me gently and caressed my hair. And everything was beautiful.

I couldn't help but feel longing for someone. Even though I had Mischa now, I wanted my own mother. Too bad that would only stay a fantasy.

She introduced me to her younger sister. She was standing with her face transfixed into something I could not see. I knew it was in the ground because her neck was stuck downwards. Her hair was a dull brown as opposed to her sister's vibrant blondes. My first impression was that she was an odd girl.

"Tila...TILA!"

"...What?" she never moved from her position.

"I have someone for you to meet."

"Is it someone from a famous quidditch team?"

"No."

"Then I don't want to meet them right now."

"Oh stop being such a little boy!" I was there holding her hand tightly. Mischa went over to her sister and turned her around to face me. I immediately recognized her as the girl in the wand shop. My face lit up and all my worries flew away.

"Tila, this is Jennie. Jennie, this is Tila. Now go be friends or something." Tila grabbed my arm and pulled me to where she was standing and pointed to somewhere in the lake nearby.

"Aren't they beautiful? Autumn is dancing in the wind."

She was apparantly watching the crisp leaves fall from the trees nearby and drift into the icy blue waters.

"I suppose so."

We spent the next few minutes just standing there, watching the leaves fall from the trees and into the lake. I never felt so tranquil in my life, standing with somebody else and watching leaves. I don't know where Mischa went but she must have been gone for a long time before we noticed.

I soon found out that Mischa had been a 6th year in the Ravenclaw house, and her sister was the youngest girl in a somewhat large family. Her name was Tila and we were the same age.

We spent the rest of the train ride talking about things that 11 year olds would talk about. It really wasn't until when I was sorted into my house that I realized that I would be surrounded by people my age that probably had normal lives. I related to Tila because she didn't.

_ And it scared me._

* * *


End file.
